M840TR wrote: ↑23 Oct 2018, 22:10
Del Boy wrote: ↑
23 Oct 2018, 06:33
M840TR wrote: ↑
22 Oct 2018, 17:58
Wasn't it Goss who said last year "we use this amount of DF because we thought that was the fastest way of going around the track and assumed the power from the engine will come"?
I thought Tim hinted recently when talking about last years car, McL had made the diffuser to short and couldn't get it to generate the amount of DF other teams could and they were compensating with higher wing rakes?
The car's diffuser size is same as others, very restricted by regs. Aero wise it's an evolution from last year.
I'll admit this is pure speculation on my part but given the strange nose, high rake angle, and relatively simple bodywork I suspect they have gone with an aero configuration that tries to generate vortices to seal the floor to optimize generating low-drag downforce. This would have reduced the drag and been an aero answer to not having enough horsepower and having this kind of configuration would have been ideal with an under powered Honda engine. They could then pour on wing and bodywork downforce as the HP improved throughout the season.
I think they took a gamble on the aero that backfired miserably leading to the realization of the management by Spain that the MCL-33 is a dud and nothing can be done to fix it. Better to cut our loses and spend all our time working on the MCL-34 and next years rules changes.
But it didn't work for reasons we don't understand and the design was in part compromised by the last minute switch to the Renault PU. They have alluded to issues with getting the power down on the straights and possibly this configuration is aerodynamically unstable, or more vulnerable to being in aero wake, or generates more drag than they expected or possibly doesn't generate enough low speed downforce. Truth is we don't really know for sure. In concert with a gearbox that was made for the Honda engine and has the wrong gear ratios, and a clever suspension design from last year that got nerfed last minute by a FIA rules change.
Of course what we be interesting to see is how similar or different the MCL-34 is to the 33.